Real life lead poisoning from airgunning

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TheShooter (aka Seeker)

TheShooter (aka Seeker)

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Jun 25, 2023
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Poland
Hi guys.

One post motivated me to write this topic.

jps2486 said:
- What about lead dust? What if you inhale lead dust?

Have you ever seen lead dust? I bet you really haven't. It is still lead and no matter how fine a dust particle it is ground in to, it is still many, many, many, many, many times heavier than air and immediately falls to the floor. Now I'm sure that you could devise a way to inhale lead dust, but it would need to be intentionally done.
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I am sorry but it is not true at all. I have lead poisoning from the lead dust. It is enough when you shoot indoors frequently or you chrony your gun indoors. Our silencers are called LDCs (lead dust collectors) for a reason. Have you seen the interior of such a silencer? It is covered with lead dust. I also had a talk with an indoors shooting range employee. His BLL (blood lead level) is 10 times as high as the norm - 500 ug/L. He does not inhale lead on purpose. My BLL was about 100ug/L - twice as high as the norm. Now I am more or less at the norm level. I did some chelation to speed the excrection up.

The most dangerous form of lead is lead dust. Almost all inhaled lead is absorbed through the lungs into your bloodsteam. Then, some of it is excreted through the sweat, bile and urine. The rest is built into the bones from which the excrection can last many years.

The lead inhalation absorbtion is in contrast with the ingested lead as the absorbtion through the digestion system is about 10% only.

Stay safe guys!

Lead is no joke.
 
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Back it up chicken little.

LDC has always been a joke. Ability to use various moderator terminology on airgun forums has come and gone a couple times. During one of the earlier iterations of a different online airgun forum, LDC was coined to be able to reference them without breaking the rules. They're not literally used for the purpose of collecting lead dust.

Does your indoor shooting range employee happen to work at an indoor FIREARM range?
 
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I seriously considered the BS of getting a .22 can for basement shooting, it ain't the lead bullets, it's the primers that gave me pause and pushed me to the world of PCP's. If truly concerned about Lead? WASH YOUR HANDS!! Often in fact. It's just too easy to load a few magazines and then reach for a sandwich W/O thinking, gee I have Lead all over my fingers, my fingers are touching my food. Same after cleaning guns, or glove up. Too darn hard to handle pellets wearing gloves, wash your hands. In this day and age especially frequent handwashing is a very good habit to develop.
 
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In the last two years I’ve had much better opportunity to shoot both indoors and outdoors and I so I have. This January I asked my doctor to include a lead test with the normal blood tests and my levels are already slightly above normal.

Since I have no other exposure to lead it’s almost certainly from shooting. Rimfire seems less risky than airgun since 22LR is greased or waxed.

Lead dust seems like the less likely reason and lead on clothing and hands rubbing my eyes and getting into my mouth (by eating food) seem like the more likely reason. I’ve invested in keeping lead removing hand wipes around and keeping food very much away from shooting until I’ve wiped down.

This summer I’ve also spent significant hours swaging pellets which of course involves a lot of handling of pure lead with my bare hands. It makes a lot of lead debris but nothing that would seem to be airborne.

Definitely interested if there are lead removing laundry detergents and such since I do have jackets and towels that regularly have ammo and lead on them.
 
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The indoor range I've visited locally has a continuous flow of water over it's backstop presumably to reduce airborne lead. That seems like a reasonable thing to do for employees. It would also help visitors but the potential exposure in an hour or so of shooting is not like working there for 8 hours a day every day.

I agree with washing hands before handling food and other reasonable precautions. I also shoot almost exclusively outdoors and I shoot into a pellet trap that is 25-35 yards away. So any dust from the impact would seemingly not get to me. But I handle pellets and sometimes take my guns apart including the shrouds and there is obviously visible dust in the shroud. I clean it off with a wetted paper towel and throw the towel away.

Getting a test to be sure what you are doing isn't harming you is probably a reasonable idea too but I doubt I will. I think doing reasonable common sense things is enough at my age.
 
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Guys, as I indicated, lead absorption via digestive system is about 10%. Even less can be absorbed via skin. Lead dust is the worst.

Consider lead projectile travelling through the barrel. It wears down and then it is sprayed by ~130 bars of pressure. It is a no brainer if you look into your shroud/silencer. LDC may be a joke but the name describes that can pretty well.

The truth is there is no safe level of lead in your system. It is a neurotoxin.

Other thing is that BLL shows you current exposure only. You may have low BLL but your bones and other tissues can hold a lot of lead. Once you lower your BLL the tissues can slowly release lead to the bloodstream again due to the diffussion.
 
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DennisB said:
Lots of misinformation here
Worked as a radiator repairman for 17 years
Yes I had lead levels that the Dr was concerned about
It gets into your bones and stays there
No amount of chelation will remove it
Check out the medical facts
Then comment
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Not true. Yes, chelation removes lead from the blood only. However, your bones are constantly being rebuilt. This is a live tissue. Now, your bones do not have even one cell that was in them seven years ago - that is the amount of time needed for the whole skeleton to be rebuilt - the average value. Hence, it can take that much time for the body to get rid of the lead assuming no ongoing exposure - which is insane given how easy it is to get contaminated.

Please do not accuse me of spreading misinformation as I spent countless of hours on the analysis and now I share that with you to raise your awareness and save your health.
 
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Just make sure to give up the beer, whiskey, twinkies, pizza, tobacco/nicotine, and ho-hos too. Those take more years off your life than lead does.

Well, so long as you're washing your hands after handling, and not eating paint chips and licking your moderators clean.

Strange choice to bring an anti-lead soapbox to an airgun forum. Kind of like going to a hippy forum and complaining about kale and hemp and people not showering. I assume there are hippy forums somewhere. There must be.

Know your audience. Read the room.
 
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Spartan said:
Just make sure to give up the beer, whiskey, twinkies, pizza, tobacco/nicotine, and ho-hos too. Those take more years off your life than lead does.

Well, so long as you're washing your hands after handling, and not eating paint chips and licking your moderators clean.

Strange choice to bring an anti-lead soapbox to an airgun forum. Kind of like going to a hippy forum and complaining about kale and hemp and people not showering. I assume there are hippy forums somewhere. There must be.

Know your audience. Read the room.
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Nicotine is merely "Habit forming" it does not cause cancer. And it also increases Testosterone.
 
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AwJeez2.jpg
 
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Small lead particles are dangerous. Any heavy metal sized in sub micron particles are bad news for humans. A severe respiratory threat.

Lead is a very soluble element. They test for lead on surfaces with a wipe saturated with weak acetic acid. It dissolves minute lead particles into solution.

Ceramic tiles often contain lead. When removed during demolition lead dust DOES accumulate. And as said before if inhaled it is much more dangerous. After a demolition the area is tested, vacuumed with a HEPA filter and then all surfaces are wiped with vinegar before clearance tests are done. This is just one example of how microscopic lead dust can be hazardous and completely overlooked.

There is no doubt that shooting a lead projectile exposes you to lead through ingestion and inhalation.

Lead is cumulative. And constant exposure over time WILL elevate lead levels. I'm not sure how hazardous shooting a pellet gun in a confined space would actually be. Probably not much. But if you shoot inside in an area you can find out. Just get a surface wipe test done. Any analytical outfit that services the construction industry will do one for cheap. If you do the wipe yourself and save them a service call it will be really cheap. There is also home lead test kits you can do it yourself.

You would be surprised at how many toxins are in our everyday environment. It's worth knowing. It certainly beats denial or ignorance. Testing may not make you live longer but it isn't going to make you die any sooner either. It just might give you the information to decide to do things differently.
 
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